He's Dead Now

Bill Hicks wasn't actually a comedian, per se, so much as a preacher whose religion was criticism. Not criticism as in "why haven't you taken out the trash you worthless flâneur" but more in a Kantian "one's primary task as a person is to practice the art of judgment" kind of way. He was also irony's bitch, struck down by a rare form of pancreatic cancer in his early thirties shortly after quitting a long career as a vocally enthusiastic chain-smoker.

Ambivalently semi-thrilled though I am at the thought of Jon Stewart returning to the airwaves a month before the presidential primaries (in response to which Comedy Central and I are now at odds over something other than the fact that their programming is one part comedy and 47 parts not), I really, really miss Bill Hicks. I knew he was my soulmate the day I heard him say, "I don't mean to sound bitter, cold, or cruel, but I am, so that's how it comes out."

In tribute:



P.S. If you have an aversion to the hilariously gratuitous use of words deemed socially inappropriate by the F.C.C. you may want to skip this one. And he's not so much a fan of the right wing. Or the right leg. Or the right foot. Or, you know.